Chiaroscuro
by Lady StarFlower
Summary: Theirs is a dance of dark and light, weaving on the ice leaving cursive words of death and life in their wake. Zeref/Mavis. Spoilers if you have not read chapter 537 of the manga.


Chiaroscuro. A word to describe their whole relationship.

Thiers is a dance of dark and light, weaving on the ice leaving cursive words of death and life in their wake. They jump and twirl and waltz like some possessed creatures, possessed with magic, nay, sorcery of an otherworldly kind.

She leads. He leads. No one follows.

Behind him is an empire. Behind her is a kingdom. Yet they differ so much.

One is brimming with power unholy, with might strong enough to smite the heavens and bring them down in pieces, raining death upon the earth as they do so. The other is as equally powerful, and yet it is of a different kind of strength. A strength born of laughter and fellowship, of mingled blood and shared bonds stronger than adamant.

Sheer power is overwhelming. Family can be even more devastating.

Their dance heats. Passion and ferocity intertwine their footwork.

He raises a hand, and the empire rises with him, roaring with unleashed power never before seen. She points her fingers, and the kingdom swells, laughing with some sort of furious joy as they storm into the fray.

They clash. The earth heaves and roils with the impact.

Of course, there are losses on both sides. A forgotten son vanishing into oblivion, reaching for the much-too-small hand of his mother. An old man, sighing as he closes his eyes in the large arms of his grandson. A scarlet-haired woman, smiling as she impales herself with her daughter's sword.

Fury begins to taint the blows of the living. Friends turn on each other. Steaming ice and smoking flame confront, each fighting for a woman painted with bloody water or a woman who smells of blood and stars.

Light and dark begin to mix. A sort of greyness emerges.

He is leading now, his hand clamped around her wrist, forcing her to follow in the battle-crazed wake of his footsteps. Her eyes are wide as her small feet follow his path of war and destruction, reliving every moment he had to agonize through because of love and a desperation to change things.

A dragon roars. The demon inside purrs.

The girl who smells of stars curls up next to the demonic dragon, her heart and body lay bare to him. The girl whispers his name again and again as a little blue cat looks on in fearful expectation.

She struggles to regain control of the dance. The dance falters. Light and dark begin to ooze together. The dragon sinks further into the demon.

A dark hand seizes both their wrists. He smirks at the interruption, and she gasps. Draconic fangs leer at her as the new dancer weaves his own fiendish goals into the dance, morphing from a waltz into a sort of evil serenade.

However, the demon within the dragon withers until the dragon erupts triumphant, roaring to rally the faerie kingdom and to topple the empire.

The dance reaches the breaking point. A woman who smells of stars, ancestral and benign, weaves a trap under the ice, and the draconic intruder tumbles in, screaming bloody revenge. Light and dark resume their waltz.

She is faltering. He is grinning. He spins her, tosses her, and the ice beneath them cracks and groans. She whimpers at the fingernails digging into the soft flesh on her palm.

The ice shatters. They plummet, falling into an abyss of memory and what-if's. She died once. He cried once. Their dance is an ancient one, one that surpasses the frail ice rink they call now.

He shudders at the memory. The one he seeks earnestly to erase and redo. He yearns for a pink-haired brother and smiling parents. He years to live a normal life.

She wraps her arms around his neck and wails denial. He stares agape at her.

She tells him, clear stream of water running down her cheeks, "In that world, we would have never met."

He freezes. Somewhere, that pink-haired brother is bristling with flames, shouting a challenge to Zeref, the author of what he is now, a hybrid between hellish creature and fairy tale villain.

She clings to his neck. His fierce conviction, something that never wavered once in all the centuries he has been alive, wavers. He ponders, just for a moment, what it would be like, to accept that beating heart she offers him. To fade into time happy.

The conviction snaps back into place. He shoves her away. Hurt fills her eyes, those eyes that have haunted him ever since they closed in death all those centuries ago. Because of him. Because of this curse that won't let him sleep.

He would be rid of that curse today.

He battles the dragon. The dragon is all himself now. Not a wisp of the demon remains. There is nothing but healthy, burning anger in his gaze, the kind that burns away all conviction and hatred.

The dragon pummels him into the floor. Even though he had ascended to the white emperor form, the dragon still beats him down. Though bleeding from half-a-dozen wounds, gasping, panting, and winded out of existence, the dragon still battles.

He falls. The dragon staggers away victorious.

She comes to stand over him. He lays splayed on the floor, the dance long over. Light and dark are poised on the brink, staring each other in the eyes.

He tells her, weakly, to finish it. She bites her lip. Pain of a thousand centuries flashes through those dark eyes. She kneels next to him, and places her hands on his chest.

She wants to kill him, she says. More than anything. He has hurt her family; he has wounded her kingdom. He has wreaked havoc of two kinds on her guild.

The physical, for those who should've lived long years are now cradled in the lulling embrace of death. The emotional, for those who should've lived long and happily, without a care in the world, are now scarred, staggering away with scars deep as a talon carved into their heart.

She begins to be angry, but tears are still falling down her face. Rage fills her broken voice as she feebly beats her fists on his chest, weeping and wailing. Her family had suffered because of him. Why was she hesitating now?!

She shakes and trembles. She loves him, she says aloud. But not enough to kill him all those years ago. She slumps. His hand gently fists around a handful of her dress. He had loved her enough to kill her. Maybe he still does.

She whimpers softly, "Die."

But yet inside she's screaming at him not to die. She wants to hold his hand, to run through golden fields with him by her side, maybe a forgotten son running in between them.

He smiles softly. Even now, he can't die. But then his eyes widen, as light surrounds them with a gentle _whoosh_ , as the ancient curse begins to take them both, because of the love thrumming between them, because of her lips on his.

Tears fill his own eyes. He grips her hands, her fingers tightening around his in turn.

"I'm so happy…" Zeref whispers, "Because of you…I'll finally get some rest at last."

Mavis just smiles, a smile of sadness and joy, and buries her face in his neck. He lets out a sound of faint dismay, as the light surrounds her own body as well. It was the curse…or is it a blessing now?

"Let's go together, Zeref."

"Mavis…"

They vanish into the light together.

They go with smile on their faces.

O.O

The old man awakens in the shocked grip of his grandson's arms. He frowns at the blurry images he thought he had just witnessed.

Was it all a dream, or did he see a barefooted girl, a jet-black boy….playing together ever so joyfully?


End file.
